


In Dreams

by inklings



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 19:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2633738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inklings/pseuds/inklings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is what Ginny tells no one. </p><p>There is a bit of Tom Riddle that still lives in her mind, that whispers and keeps her company in her dreams. There is a handsome boy with dark hair and wounded eyes—not so different from Harry after all—and he needs her more than anyone else in her life. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dreams

Ginny Weasley is the lucky girl engaged to the hero of the free world, the one whose beaming pictures grace the cover of Witch Weekly alongside headlines about skin clearing potions and hair curling charms.

When she and Harry are alone in the flat that they share, they can lapse into companionable silence for hours. They perch on the couch—Ginny tucked underneath Harry’s arm—and sip on mugs of hot tea. Harry smells like fresh grass and cinnamon, like home personified.

Ginny and Harry have an understanding. There are things about their past that they never talk about. There are painful subjects that they place under lock and key, close to their shredded, bloody hearts.

This is how their relationship works. This is how they survive.

\--------------------

This is what Ginny tells no one.

There is a bit of Tom Riddle that still lives in her mind, that whispers and keeps her company in her dreams. There is a handsome boy with dark hair and wounded eyes—not so different from Harry after all—and he needs her more than anyone else in her life.

Everything else has been stripped from him: his body, his future, and even his humanity. Tom is the flickering ghost that clings to Ginny, the word always at the tip of her tongue.

 _Tom_. She says his name like an incantation.

 _Ginny._ He says hers like it’s the only thing keeping him from drowning.

\--------------------

Ginny falls in love for the first time when she is eleven.

At her engagement party to Harry, Ron stands up, wobbly with drink and sentiment and says, “Who would’ve guessed that my little sister would end up marrying her first love, eh? Does anyone else remember how she mooned after Harry since she was just a wee first year?”

Ginny and Harry exchange glances and laugh. The night is warm, The Burrow is filled with people that they love, and their fingers are intertwined underneath the table.

A little voice in the back of Ginny’s mind—is that her voice, or Tom’s?—reminds her of the truth. _Harry wasn’t your first love, and he won’t be your last._

\--------------------

 _Why haven’t you told anyone about us?_ In Ginny’s dream, she and Tom are sitting on top of desks in a cold empty classroom. His arms are crossed over his chest in irritation, his robes slightly rumpled.

 _I don’t know,_ she shrugs, feeling at once guilty and exhilarated. _What is there to tell?_ All this time, and she hasn’t told a single soul—not even Hermione—that Tom Riddle never quite left her mind. She was angry with him for a long time, after what happened in the Chamber of Secrets. She refused to answer his pleas and tried to carry on the normal life of a Hogwarts student. But he apologized and she listened.

And now Ginny is sixteen, and she’s fallen into the habit of meeting with Tom several nights a week. She no longer thinks of him as some kind of prince charming, like she did when she was eleven and chock-full of childish romanticism. But he’s good-looking and he’s honest and he’s complicated—and he doesn’t mind when Ginny isn’t the sweet, perfect girl that she’s supposed to be.

He doesn’t mind when she’s so angry that she draws blood with her kisses, leaves fingernail tracks down his neck and back.

 _You’re right. There’s nothing to tell,_ he whispers, his smile enigmatic, the glint in his eyes dangerous as he leans down to cover her mouth with his.

\--------------------

The first time that Ginny does it is with Dean Thomas. He is kind and polite and so nervous as he fumbles with the clasp on her skirt that his hands tremble. She buries her face in the crook of his neck as he thrusts into her, murmuring into her hair that’s she’s beautiful, _oh god, Ginny, you’re so beautiful._

The first time that Ginny does it with Harry is in the midst of the war. He comes to her bedroom in The Burrow exhausted and shattered, and she pulls back the sheets and holds him tight in her freckled arms. He falls asleep and in the middle of the night, wakes her up with his screaming.

The first time that Ginny comes to Tom in her dreams and says, _I’m ready,_ he pushes her against the stone wall—in her dreams, the walls are always stone, the rooms are always cold, and everyone in her life is always far, far away—and kisses her so hard that her lower lip bleeds. In the morning, she wakes up sore with the ghosts of bruises on her hips and neck, invisible to everyone but herself.

\--------------------

It’s stupid to feel so guilty because he’s just a boy in a dream, a boy who grows up in real life to be the most vile, despicable villain. But still, Ginny hates the way that his fists clench at his sides and his eyes suddenly snap closed when she tells him that she and Harry are getting married.

 _You love him,_ he says, and it’s not a question. It’s a confirmation of what he already knows.

 _Yes,_ she says. _But not in the same way that I love you. Never in the same way._

\--------------------

The war taught Ginny how to compartmentalize. How else could she handle school and battle at the same time, juggle burgeoning romances and deaths in her immediate family?

She and Harry are remarkably good at this, and that's another thing that makes them such a perfect couple. 

He can go to work as an Auror and watch a colleague bleed out in front of him, and still make it home in time to make their dinner reservation. She can kiss Harry on the cheek and have long, drunken conversations with him about what their kids will look like (she hopes that they’ll have his hair and her freckles), but when she falls asleep in the bed that they share, she’s always read to see Tom. 

\--------------------

 _I go on to do some terrible things, don’t I?_ She and Tom are lying on top of a blanket, her head resting on his bare chest. He stares up at the ceiling, his face impassive, unreadable.

They never talk about the war, or who he eventually becomes. He doesn’t want to know, and she doesn’t want to tell him. It would break the spell of what they have—of the fact that they are just two people who seek comfort in each other, two people who, in a strange, twisted way, love each other.

 _Yes,_ she finally says, and feels his body tense up beneath hers. _Yes, you do._

 _I’m sorry_ , he says. _I don’t know the full extent of it, but I’m sorry._

She props herself upon her elbows and looks into his eyes. The storm within, oh how it rages.

 _I forgive you,_ she tells him, and kisses his forehead, his cheeks, the corner of his mouth. _I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you._

Forgiveness won’t bring Fred or Sirius or Lupin or Tonks or any number of Ginny’s loved ones back, but it doesn’t feel like a betrayal, either. Maybe this is just absolution. Maybe this is a clean start. Maybe this is just how they keep themselves alive, with their own uncommon methods.

\--------------------

There is a boy who lives in Ginny’s dreams. He’s the last vestige of Lord Voldemort’s humanity, the tattered remains of his wants, fears, and desires. He doesn’t yet have dreams of decimating the world, of unspeakable cruelty and violence—but Ginny knows that his anger is like a simmering ocean, deep and unfathomable and due to boil over at any moment.

But he loves her. And she loves him. And if she were to stop dreaming, it would end him, and Ginny doesn’t want that kind of blood on her hands.

They have shed and spilled enough blood already, between the two of them.

_Fin._

 


End file.
